Nutritional status of students of primary and secondary education of Valencia and the relationship with adherence to the Mediterranean Diet

Introduction: Childhood obesity is reaching very high in the Spanish pediatric population favouring obesity in adults. To know the nutritional status of students from six schools in the province of Valencia and its degree of adherence to the Mediterranean Diet (MD). Material and methods: Cross-sectional study that included 777 students, 49.9% were boys and 50.1% girls aged between 8 and 16 years. Weight and height of each participant was determined and body mass index (BMI) was calculated. From the Z-score BMI was calculated. KIDMED test was used to study the degree of adherence to the MD. Results: The prevalence of overweight was 14.5 % and 10.0% obese. A total of 53.3%, 30.1% and 16.6% of the whole sample showed a high, medium and low adherence to the MD, respectively. Age, sex and nutritional status were evaluated according to the adherence to the MD. Chi-squared analysis indicated significant association between academic course and nutritional status with the adherence to the MD. Being older and having a higher BMI supposed lower adherence to the MD. Conclusions: We confirmed that the adherence to the MD has significant association with the nutritional status of young people, worsening with increasing age. These results corroborate the need to re-learn eating habits.